The truth of self-insufficiency

A recording of today's gospel and reflection can be accessed here.

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Today’s gospel (Matthew 5: 17-37) presents us with a series of injunctions from Jesus who places His demands at the centre of the new law. Be perfect as you heavenly Father is perfect, He tells them, but the details of this injunction are even more startling. Henceforth, justice to others is no longer a matter of merely respecting their life. It is also a matter of not even being angry with them, of exercising patience, i.e. our capacity to bear with others. Purity is not to be thought of only as the avoidance of adultery but also as the purity of mind and heart where even our feelings and imaginations are shaped by a virtuous balance. Finally, truthfulness cannot be contained simply by speaking the truth, so much as in being above the need to swear to one’s veracity. Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion, but Jesus’ followers are supposed to be intrinsic truthtellers.

When we distil these commandments to their bare outlines, they sound like a heavy burden. There is indeed a way of keeping the commandments which is not only wrongheaded but wrong-hearted. This was in part the sin of the Pharisees who only judged things by their appearances. Nevertheless, the heart can go wrong not only when it seeks to seem good rather than to be good, but also when it attempts to meet the challenges of the law by its own resources. If the sin of the former is hypocrisy, the sin of the latter is self-sufficiency. James and John sometimes exhibit hypocritically skin-deep virtue, losing their temper to the point that Jesus called them the Sons of Thunder. Peter, in contrast, is the patron of self-sufficiency, declaring his undying adherence to the Lord until the moment of trial brought a bitter defeat. As he then learned, the burdens of patience, purity, and truthfulness are all the more momentous when we face them all alone.

But this is why no part of the gospel can be read in isolation from the rest. Jesus’ commandments in this gospel extract only make sense when connected with the rest of His teachings, not least the surprising lesson of the Good Shepherd: learn of me for I am meek and humble of heart. Or, If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink – if by thirst we understand the thirst for justice in the disciple who wants to carry out his Master’s wishes.

The madness of our self-sufficiency – for madness it is – comes even more to the fore in the discourse of Jesus at the Last Supper. There, we see that our path of perfection is in point of fact a path towards union. Not only does Jesus promise to dwell with the Father in those who love Him, He also affirms that we are only the branches to His vine. St Paul will say a similar thing later on by calling us all members of Christ’s body. We are not our own, nor are we Romantic heroes who strike a blow for rugged authenticity. Paul longed to be dissolved and to be with Christ, and so should we all, no longer clamouring for our hour in the spotlight, acclaiming our “I” before the world, but surrendering to the author of our existence our readiness to receive the incomparable gift of Himself.

There within, when all the noise dies and God has sculptured His silence within, then, we might know what it is to have the Lord come and pronounce His own Fiat within our hearts and minds, to speak His thank you to the Father in our own members in justice, patience, and truthfulness.